Articles and comments by Fadi Zanayed, a Moderate Palestinian, about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

Saturday, December 24, 2011

The Lowe’s Controversy—Moving Forward

Three weeks after the home
improvement store Lowe’s offended the American-Arab community by pulling its ad
from the TLC channel show All American Muslim and after a lackluster response by
the national American-Arab organizations, we need to look at how the “community”
needs to act now to prevent future affronts. The problem with our community is that we are
reactionary rather than "preventionary” community. Yes, this is a new word
which means that we have to take action now to prevent any further politician,
corporation or any other person from affronting our community. We need to make the next perpetrator of
racism an example of why such action will not be tolerated.

Our community has mandated confronting
and preventing discrimination to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee (ADC) which is celebrating its 31st year, having been founded
by Senator James Aburizk (D-SD 1973-1979) in 1980 after FBI agents dressed up
like Arab oil sheiks to “sting” members of Congress. Outraged at this negative portrayal
of American-Arabs, Senator Aburizk went around the US and organized ADC chapters
in major cities. I was at the founding meeting in Chicago in 1980 and served as
the Chicago Regional Director in 1984 and Chicago Chapter President in
1988-1990 and again in 2009.

ADC
enjoyed many victories and was very successful in combating discrimination in
the 1980s. During that time, ADC confronted discrimination head on. One notable campaign in 1988 involved the Nomad doll. The book A Short Course in International Marketing
Blunders shows how a US corporation’s (Coleco) attempt to ethnically
stereotype American-Arabs caused its downfall.

What landed on Coleco, however, wasn’t the issue of shelf life. It was
the issue of ethnic stereotyping engendered in the Nomad, one of Rambo’s most ruthless enemies==a burnoose-wearing,
obviously Arab figure described in its package insert as ‘dangerous, cold,
unstable, and treacherous’ with ‘an intimate knowledge of sabotage.’ In short,
the Nomad action figure embodied
everything people thought they knew about real Arabs.

The outrage was deafening, with Arab-American community activist groups
and others demanding the toy be removed from store shelves. And newspapers across the country reported on
planned boycotts and anti-Coleco media campaigns.[1]

ADC organized a massive campaign
across the country which helped bring “Coleco—once the King of Toys and global
marketer of Scrabble and Parchesi board games” out of business.[2]
The campaign involved demonstrations in front of Toys R Us stores and a more
effective telephone campaign that sent hundreds if not thousands of calls into
the Coleco headquarters complaining about the insidious attempt to stereotype American-Arabs. ADC taught an American corporation a lesson
in the 1980s and “prevented” other corporations from manufacturing another
racist toy.

This lesson, however, was short
lived as the first and second Gulf Wars and 911 perpetuated further negative
stereotypes against American-Arabs.
Additionally, ADC’s stance during the first Gulf War in which its
position was that Iraq’s invasion into Kuwait was an internal Arab matter for
which the US and the world should not get involved hurt ADC’s stance and
funding. As a result, ADC ‘s prestige as the premier American-Arab organization
suffered. Consequently, ADC has not
fought the good fight against discrimination since.

Now in 2011, ADC needs to go
back to its roots. ADC gained prestige by
combating discrimination head on, i.e. Coleco.
The incident with Lowe’s was not confronted with the same pizazz and fervor
as ADC confronted discrimination in the 1980s. Back then, computers were not
widespread; the internet, and consequently email, was not a part of our lives; and
cell phones were still too premature. Yet,
ADC responded instantaneously (within a week, which was good in those
days). With the Lowe’s, ADC’s response
was at best lukewarm—calling for demonstrations by the second weekend.

While the NY Times on December
23, 2011 issued an excellent editorial which called Lowe’s decision to pull its
ad a foolish judgment call,[3]
it was not because of any American-Arab outrage.

ADC needs to follow-up on this
issue. It needs to meet with Lowe’s
officers and present a program to educate the American public about Muslims and
Arabs and present Lowe’s with the bill.
Lowe’s has to rectify its image with Muslims and Arabs by combating the
Islamophobia that has engulfed the American mainstream.

Additionally, ADC needs to develop
a rapid response committee of American-Arab activists who will respond to text
messages instantaneously whenever discrimination rears its ugly head again—and it
will. In this age of lighting
communications, ADC needs to respond quickly to get its message across. The AT&T commercial which pokes fun at
other wireless networks for disseminating information that is 42 seconds old is
a reflection on how fast communication is moving in this second decade of the
21st Century.

In retrospect, ADC should have
sent a text message to its committed activist such as the following 159
character message within hours of the Lowe’s controversy:

Call Lowes 1-8004456937 press 4 then 3 and complain about its pulling
ad from All American Muslim Show. Tell them you will not shop there unless ad
is replaced

I communicated this text message
to an ADC staff member—but nothing was done.

Now let us understand what we
need to do to move forward—to be a “preventionary” force. ADC needs to identify 100-200 of its very
active members who will be willing to act immediately whenever it receives an “action
alert” text message from the national ADC office. Additionally, these members must be
committed to get 10 relatives and friends to so act. Had Lowe’s received a 1,000 telephone calls within hours of its
decision to pull the ads, it may have rescinded its decision or at the very
least it would have put ADC in a better bargaining position to have Lowe’s help
ADC fight the Islamophobia that created this controversy.

Additionally, ADC executives
need to read Saul D. Alinsky’s book Rules
For Radicals. Although written prior to his death in 1972,
Allinsky’s book provides out of the box thinking for organizing campaigns for
social justice. ADC needs to be
creative, spontaneous and enthusiastic in meeting its mission to confront
discrimination against American-Arabs just as it did in the 1980s.

About Me

Fadi Zanayed is an author, poet, community activist and an attorney since 1985. A graduate from Loyola University with a B.S. in Managerial Accounting and a minor in Political Science in 1983, he received his law degree from Loyola School of Law in 1985. A Palestinian American whose family originates from Ramallah, Palestine, Fadi Zanayed is an active and proud member of the Arab American community with a long history of community leadership and service. They include: Founding Member of Arab-American Bar Association of Illinois, Inc.; Former Regional Director & Past President, Chicago Chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Past President of the Chicago Chapter of the Palestinian American Congress; Past National Secretary of the Palestinian American Congress; Past President of the Chicago Club of Ramallah, Palestine; Past Member of the Board of the American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine; Past President of the American Youth Federation of Ramallah, Palestine. He is the author of Cycle of Frustration: A collection of poems about Palestine; and Betrayal, Sorrow and Tomorrow (pen name: Chris F. Wollinks).